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The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson and the Making of Modern Canada
Par John Ibbitson. 2023
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLEROne of Canada’s foremost authors and journalists, offers a gripping account of the contest between John Diefenbaker and…
Lester Pearson, two prime ministers who fought each other relentlessly, but who between them created today’s Canada. John Diefenbaker has been unfairly treated by history. Although he wrestled with personal demons, his governments launched major reforms in public health care, law reform and immigration. On his watch, First Nations on reserve obtained the right to vote and the federal government began to open up the North. He established Canada as a leader in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and took the first steps in making Canada a leader in the fight against nuclear proliferation. And Diefenbaker’s Bill of Rights laid the groundwork for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He set in motion many of the achievements credited to his successor, Lester B. Pearson.Pearson, in turn, gave coherence to Diefenbaker’s piecemeal reforms. He also pushed Parliament to adopt a new, and now much-loved, Canadian flag against Diefenbaker’s fierce opposition. Pearson understood that if Canada were to be taken seriously as a nation, it must develop a stronger sense of self. Pearson was superbly prepared for the role of prime minister: decades of experience at External Affairs, respected by leaders from Washington to Delhi to Beijing, the only Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Diefenbaker was the better politician, though. If Pearson walked with ease in the halls of power, Diefenbaker connected with the farmers and small-town merchants and others left outside the inner circles. Diefenbaker was one of the great orators of Canadian political life; Pearson spoke with a slight lisp. Diefenbaker was the first to get his name in the papers, as a crusading attorney: Diefenbaker for the Defence, champion of the little man. But he struggled as a politician, losing five elections before making it into the House of Commons, and becoming as estranged from the party elites as he was from the Liberals, until his ascension to the Progressive Conservative leadership in 1956 through a freakish political accident. As a young university professor, Pearson caught the attention of the powerful men who were shaping Canada’s first true department of foreign affairs, rising to prominence as the helpful fixer, the man both sides trusted, the embodiment of a new country that had earned its place through war in the counsels of the great powers: ambassador, undersecretary, minister, peacemaker. Everyone knew he was destined to be prime minister. But in 1957, destiny took a detour.Then they faced each other, Diefenbaker v Pearson, across the House of Commons, leaders of their parties, each determined to wrest and hold power, in a decade-long contest that would shake and shape the country. Here is a tale of two men, children of Victoria, who led Canada into the atomic age: each the product of his past, each more like the other than either would ever admit, fighting each other relentlessly while together forging the Canada we live in today. To understand our times, we must first understand theirs.Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice
Par Azmi Bishara. 2022
In January 2020, US President Donald Trump announced his 'deal of the century'. Supposedly intended to 'resolve' the Palestine-Israel conflict,…
it accepted Israeli occupation as a fait accompli. Azmi Bishara places this normalization of occupation in its historical context, examining Palestine as an unresolved case of settler colonialism, now evolved into an apartheid regime. Drawing on extensive research and rich theoretical analysis, Bishara examines the overlap between the long-discussed 'Jewish Question' and what he calls the 'Arab Question', complicating the issue of Palestinian nationhood. He addresses the Palestinian Liberation Movement's failure to achieve self-determination, and the emergence of a 'Palestinian Authority' under occupation. He contends that no solution to problems of nationality or settler colonialism is possible without recognizing the historic injustices inflicted on Palestinians since the Nakba. This book compellingly argues that Palestine is not simply a dilemma awaiting creative policy solutions, but a problem requiring the application of justice. Attempts by regional governments to marginalize the Palestinian cause and normalize relations with Israel have emphasized this aspect of the struggle, and boosted Palestinian interactions with justice movements internationally. Bishara provides a sober perspective on the current political situation in Palestine, and a fresh outlook for its future.Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism
Par Anna Kornbluh. 2023
Why speed, flow, and direct expression now dominate cultural styleContemporary cultural style boosts transparency and instantaneity. These are values absorbed…
from our current economic conditions of "disintermediation": cutting out the middleman. Like Uber, but for art. Immediacy names this style to make sense of what we lose when the contradictions of twenty-first-century capitalism demand that aesthetics negate mediation. Surging realness as an aesthetic program synchs with the economic imperative to intensify circulation when production stagnates. "Flow" is the ultimate twenty-first-century buzzword, but speedy circulation grinds art down to the nub. And the bad news is that political turmoil and social challenges require more mediation. Collective will, inspiring ideas, and deliberate construction are the only way out, but our dominant style forgoes them. Considering original streaming TV, popular literature, artworld trends, and academic theories, Immediacy explains the recent obsession with immersion and today&’s intolerance of representation, and points to alternative forms in photography, TV, novels, and constructive theory that prioritize distance, impersonality, and big ideas instead.US Foreign Service Women in the Middle East and Islamic North Africa, 1945–2001
Par Anthony J. Barker. 2023
Focusing on the attitudes and experiences of American female diplomats and spouses, this book examines the social, political, and cultural…
dimensions of American interactions with the Middle East and North Africa in the five decades after the Second World War. A turbulent period, marked by conflicts associated with the Cold War and decolonization, it was also characterized by changing attitudes to women at odds with those in Moslem societies. The impact of those changes is explored throughout this book, principally drawing on personal oral histories included in the 'Frontline Diplomacy' collection, but reinforced by cables passing between regional U.S. embassies and the State Department in Washington DC.Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Survived the CIA
Par Patrick Winn. 2024
The gripping true story of an indigenous people running the world&’s mightiest narco-state—and America&’s struggle to thwart them. In Asia&’s…
narcotics-producing heartland, the Wa reign supreme. They dominate the Golden Triangle, a mountainous stretch of Burma between Thailand and China. Their 30,000-strong army, wielding missiles and attack drones, makes Mexican cartels look like street gangs. Wa moguls are unrivaled in the region&’s $60 billion meth trade and infamous for mass-producing pink, vanilla-scented speed pills. Drugs finance Wa State, a bona fide nation with its own laws, anthems, schools, and electricity grid. Though revered by their people, Wa leaders are scorned by US policymakers as vicious &“kingpins&” who &“poison our society for profit.&” In Narcotopia, award-winning journalist Patrick Winn uncovers the truth behind Asia&’s top drug-trafficking organization, as told by a Wa commander turned DEA informant. This gripping narrative shreds drug war myths and leads to a chilling revelation: the Wa syndicate&’s origins are smudged with CIA fingerprints. This is a saga of native people tapping the power of narcotics to create a nation where there was none before — and covert US intelligence operations gone wrong.Science Fiction Theatre (TV Milestones Series)
Par J. P. Telotte. 2024
In the wake of the juvenile space operas of the early 1950s, a groundbreaking series debuted and paved the way…
for one of viewers’ favorite genres today: adult-oriented science fiction. Science Fiction Theatre aired with a fresh anthology-style narrative from the vision of veteran producer Ivan Tors and with compelling narration by Truman Bradley. Created by industry-leading syndicator Ziv Television Programs, the show pioneered a scientifically based approach to aliens, telepathy, and the mysteries of the universe that provided a model for Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (1959–64) and a myriad of acclaimed programs that followed, including The Outer Limits (1963–65), The Ray Bradbury Theater (1985–92),and Black Mirror (2011–present). This book contextualizes Science Fiction Theatre within the budding American television industry of the 1950s, as powerful networks and independent producers and syndicators vied to create and distribute programming to an audience eager to embrace this new, free medium. Including a complete videography of this historically neglected series, author J. P. Telotte illuminates Science Fiction Theatre as a touchstone for understanding the development of science fiction media and the dynamic nature of early television broadcasting.A Story of Islamic Art
Par Marcus Milwright. 2024
Providing an introduction to the artistic and architectural traditions of the Islamic world, A Story of Islamic Art explores fifty…
case studies, taken from different regions of the Islamic world and from the seventh to the twenty-first centuries. The novel aspect of these case studies is that they are presented as fictional narratives, allowing the reader to imagine art and architecture, either in their original cultural settings or at some later point in their histories. These stories are supported by a scholarly framework that allows the reader to continue their exploration of the chosen artefacts and their historical context. The fifty case studies take the form of short stories, each of which focuses on one or more object from the Islamic world. These encompass portable items in a wide variety of media, book illustrations, calligraphy, photographs, architectural decoration, buildings, and archaeological sites. The book also provides a detailed introduction, maps, timeline, glossary, and guides for further reading. This book offers accessible answers to key questions in the scholarship on Islamic art and architecture from its earliest times to the present. The issues dealt with in each of the stories include iconography, attitudes towards representation, the role of script, the elaboration of geometric decoration, the creation of sacred and secular spaces in architecture, and the socio-cultural context of art production and consumption. Artistic interactions between the Islamic world and other regions including Europe and China are also discussed in this book. A Story of Islamic Art is an engaging and informative introduction for interested readers and students of Islamic art, history, and architecture.Death to Beauty: The Transformative History of Botox
Par Eugene M. Helveston. 2024
In the 1970s, Dr. Alan Scott sought to selectively weaken eye muscles to treat strabismus (when one or both eyes…
are misaligned) without surgery. After failed attempts with other agents, Scott developed a method to stabilize the bacteria that causes botulism, culminating in a drug that eventually became known as Botox. In Death to Beauty, Eugene M. Helveston, MD, follows the unlikely story of botulism's 1817 discovery in contaminated German sausages, to its use in military and research facilities, to Scott, an ophthalmologist who aimed to safely use the drug in humans. Scott struggled alone as an unknown in the pharmaceutical industry, searching for clinical trial financing and FDA approval, which he achieved at a fraction of the billions big pharma usually spends to bring a drug to market. Eventually, the company Allergan bought him out, capitalizing on the possibilities for cosmetic uses. Scott's formula was renamed "Botox" and reached annual sales in the billions. After the sale, Scott received no further compensation from Botox sales and remained the same unassuming man.A fascinating walk through the intricate history of how the world's deadliest toxin starting as a treatment for crossed eyes became a routine tool for the cosmetic industry, Death to Beauty will make you rethink success, beauty, and deadly bacteria.Waiting for the Cool Moon: Anti-imperialist Struggles in the Heart of Japan's Empire
Par Wendy Matsumura. 2024
In Waiting for the Cool Moon Wendy Matsumura interrogates the erasure of colonial violence at the heart of Japanese nation-state…
formation. She critiques Japan studies’ role in this effacement and contends that the field must engage with anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity as the grounds on which to understand imperialism, colonialism, fascism, and other forces that shape national consciousness. Drawing on Black radical thinkers’ critique of the erasure of the Middle Passage in universalizing theories of modernity’s imbrication with fascism, Matsumura traces the consequences of the Japanese empire’s categorization of people as human and less-than-human as manifested in the 1920s and 1930s, and the struggles of racialized and colonized people against imperialist violence. She treats the archives safeguarded by racialized, colonized women throughout the empire as traces of these struggles, including the work they performed to keep certain stories out of view. Matsumura demonstrates that tracing colonial sensibility and struggle is central to grappling with their enduring consequences for the present.Standing His Ground: The Inside Story of Ron Desantis's Rise and Battle for Freedom
Par Richard Corcoran. 2023
Contrary to what the mainstream media has claimed, Florida under Ron DeSantis has become the home for freedom and individual…
liberty.At the onset of the pandemic, political leaders throughout the country were forced to quickly make significant decisions about how they would govern under extraordinary circumstances. A number of these decisions simply required instinct—they just had to come from the gut. There was little, if any, precedent to examine, and hardly any time for the usual gambits to test potential solutions. One person became a household name and a national hero for having made what proved to be the best decisions over and over: Ron DeSantis, the 46th governor of Florida. However, not surprisingly, his success also begot wrath. A patriot to millions of everyday Americans is often a &“tyrant&” to progressive elites. Other than perhaps former President Donald Trump, DeSantis was and remains the most vilified elected official in media, politics, entertainment, academia, and now the corporate world. Conservatives know full well this means he hit the bullseye. Now that more than two years have passed, the American people are able to clearly see whose decisions struck the proper balance between liberty and safety. There&’s no denying that DeSantis&’s influence soared as the world watched him successfully steer his state step by step through one of the greatest periods of turmoil and uncertainty in modern history. While many other states floundered, Florida didn&’t just survive—it flourished.As developing states adopt neoliberal policies, more and more working-class women find themselves pulled into the public sphere. They are…
pressed into wage work by a privatizing and unstable job market. Likewise, they are pulled into public roles by gender mainstreaming policies that developing states must sign on to in order to receive transnational aid. Their inclusion into the political economy is very beneficial for society, but is it also beneficial for women? In The Stigma Matrix Fauzia Husain draws on the experiences of policewomen, lady health workers, and airline attendants, all frontline workers who help the Pakistani state, and its global allies, address, surveil, and discipline veiled women citizens. These women, she finds, confront a stigma matrix: a complex of local and global, historic, and contemporary factors that work together to complicate women's integration into public life. The experiences of the three groups Husain examines reveal that inclusion requires more than quotas or special seats. This book advances critical feminist and sociological frameworks on stigma and agency showing that both concepts are made up of multiple layers of meaning, and are entangled with elite projects of hegemony.When the crucial years after the Korean War are remembered today, histories about North Korea largely recount a grand epic…
of revolution centering on the ascent of Kim Il Sung to absolute power. Often overshadowed in this storyline, however, are the myriad ways the Korean population participated in party-state projects to rebuild their lives and country after the devastation of the war. North Korea's Mundane Revolution traces the origins of the country's long-term durability in the questions that Korean women and men raised about the modern individual, housing, family life, and consumption. Using a wide range of overlooked sources, Andre Schmid examines the formation of a gendered socialist lifestyle in North Korea by focusing on the localized processes of socioeconomic and cultural change. This style of "New Living" replaced radical definitions of gender and class revolution with the politics of individual self-reform and cultural elevation, leading to a depoliticization of the country's political culture in the very years that Kim Il Sung rose to power.Introduction to Guoxue: Traditional Chinese Thoughts, Culture, and Learning
Par Zhang Taiyan. 2024
This book is a collection of Zhang Taiyan's lectures on traditional Chinese thoughts, culture, and learning. Zhang Taiyan is known…
for his role as an active proponent of Guoxue (Chinese learning) in modern China. This title comprises the transcripts of a series of his lectures on Guoxue given in Shanghai between April and June 1922, and serves as an insightful and influential companion to Guoxue. It systematically introduces the research methods of Guoxue and the development and schools of Chinese classical studies, Chinese philosophy, and Chinese literature, and provides a brilliant analysis of representative figures and works from various periods. It also touches on a wide range of topics in Chinese history, philology, paleography, bibliology, and geography. This book provides Guoxue with many new and thought-provoking ideas and plays a crucial role in the dissemination of Guoxue throughout the world. This title will be essential reading for students and scholars of Sinology and Chinese Studies, as well as for the general public interested in traditional Chinese culture.Gothic Nostalgia: The Uses of Toxic Memory in 21st Century Popular Culture (Palgrave Gothic)
Par Simon Bacon, Katarzyna Bronk-Bacon. 2024
This book is an original and innovative study of how Gothic nostalgia and toxic memory are used to underpin and…
promote the ongoing culture wars and populist politics in contemporary popular culture. The essays collected here cover topics from the spectral to the ecological, deep fakes to toxic ableism, Mary Poppins to John Wick to reveal how the use of an imaginary past to shape the present, creates truly Gothic times that we can never escape. These ‘hungry ghosts’ from the past find resonance with the Gothic which speaks equally of a past that often not only haunts the present but will not let it escape its grasp. This collection will look at the confluence between various kinds of toxic nostalgia and popular culture to suggest the ways in which contemporary populism has resurrected ideological monsters from the grave to gorge on the present and any possibility of change that the future might represent.The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir
Par John Bolton. 2020
As President Trump&’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened,…
and the facts speak for themselves. The result is a White House memoir that is the most comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration, and one of the few to date by a top-level official. With almost daily access to the President, John Bolton has produced a precise rendering of his days in and around the Oval Office. What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. &“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn&’t driven by reelection calculations,&” he writes. In fact, he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping its prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump&’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy—and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them. He shows a President addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government. In Bolton&’s telling, all this helped put Trump on the bizarre road to impeachment. &“The differences between this presidency and previous ones I had served were stunning,&” writes Bolton, who worked for Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. He discovered a President who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal—about personal relationships, made-for-TV showmanship, and advancing his own interests. As a result, the US lost an opportunity to confront its deepening threats, and in cases like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea ended up in a more vulnerable place. Bolton&’s account starts with his long march to the West Wing as Trump and others woo him for the National Security job. The minute he lands, he has to deal with Syria&’s chemical attack on the city of Douma, and the crises after that never stop. As he writes in the opening pages, &“If you don&’t like turmoil, uncertainty, and risk—all the while being constantly overwhelmed with information, decisions to be made, and sheer amount of work—and enlivened by international and domestic personality and ego conflicts beyond description, try something else.&” The turmoil, conflicts, and egos are all there—from the upheaval in Venezuela, to the erratic and manipulative moves of North Korea&’s Kim Jong Un, to the showdowns at the G7 summits, the calculated warmongering by Iran, the crazy plan to bring the Taliban to Camp David, and the placating of an authoritarian China that ultimately exposed the world to its lethal lies. But this seasoned public servant also has a great eye for the Washington inside game, and his story is full of wit and wry humor about how he saw it played.Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography
Par Benazir Bhutto. 1953
Daughter of Destiny, the autobiography of Benazir Bhutto, is a historical document of uncommon passion and courage, the dramatic story…
of a brilliant, beautiful woman whose life was, up to her tragic assassination in 2007, inexorably tied to her nation's tumultuous history. Bhutto writes of growing up in a family of legendary wealth and near-mythic status, a family whose rich heritage survives in tales still passed from generation to generation. She describes her journey from this protected world onto the volatile stage of international politics through her education at Radcliffe and Oxford, the sudden coup that plunged her family into a prolonged nightmare of threats and torture, her father's assassination by General Zia ul-Haq in 1979, and her grueling experience as a political prisoner in solitary confinement. With candor and courage, Benazir Bhutto recounts her triumphant political rise from her return to Pakistan from exile in 1986 through the extraordinary events of 1988: the mysterious death of Zia; her party's long struggle to ensure free elections; and finally, the stunning mandate that propelled her overnight into the ranks of the world's most powerful, influential leaders.Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians
Par Tara Isabella Burton. 2023
'We're all now self-makers, whether we like it or not - and this witty, sceptical book is the thought-provoking story…
of how we got here' GUARDIAN'This funny, startling, insightful story of the selfie, from Dürer to the Kardashians, is a must read if you want to understand how we reinvent ourselves every time we reveal ourselves' PETER POMERANTSEVToday's defining celebrities have crafted public personae that walk the tightrope between authenticity and artificiality. Ordinary people now follow suit: lovingly tending our 'personal brands' for economic gain and self-expression alike.Instagram culture is part of a story that goes back centuries. The vision that we not only can but should 'make' our own selves to shape our own destiny is an inextricable part of the formation of the modern world.As traditional powers of pre-modernity - church and throne - waned, a new myth took their place: that of the 'self-made man', whose unique powers of personality - or canny self-presentation - give him not just the opportunity, but the obligation, to remake reality in the image of what he wants it to be.From the Renaissance genius to the Regency dandy, the American prophets of capitalism to the aspirational übermensch of European fascism, Hollywood's Golden Age to today's Silicon Valley, Self-Made takes us on a dazzling tour of modern history's most prominent self-makers, uncovering both self-making's liberatory power, and the dangers this idea can unleash.'Both revelatory and a warning about the ways that focus on the self distorts our individual lives and the broader society' FRANCIS FUKUYAMAISIS' Propaganda Machine: Global Mediated Terrorism
Par Ahmed Al-Rawi. 2024
This book examines ISIS’ media propaganda machine.The book focuses on case studies that have been largely understudied in relation to…
ISIS’ media production. Empirically, it offers new insights into how ISIS uses its media production to disseminate its extremist ideology by focusing on video games, educational apps, Dark Web sites, and offline billboards. The book argues that despite all the discussion about how ISIS has disappeared or even died, the terrorist group’s daily activities on the Dark Web show that they are still thriving and disseminating their propaganda in more than 20 different languages, and effectively functioning as an international news organization. Using a mixed-method research approach, the book offers a multilayered understanding of media content and fills a major gap in the literature, especially in relation to the use of educational apps and the Dark Web.This book will be of much interest to students of media and communication studies, terrorism and counterterrorism, Middle Eastern politics, and international relations.The Little Guide to Louis Vuitton: Style to Live By (The little Book Of... Ser.)
Par Orange Hippo. 2023
For over 150 years, Louis Vuitton's monographed bags have been associated with style and luxury. Born in 1821, he had…
left home at 13 to seek his fortune in Paris where he became an apprentice box-maker which eventually led him to introductions at the French Royal Court. With royal endorsement, Louis opened of his first workshop in 1854 where his skills and innovations established his brand as one of Europe's most popular.Passing his passion for crafting beautiful luggage onto his son, Georges, and later his grandson Gaston-Louis, they ensured the company continued to grow, surviving two world wars, to become the luxury brand it's renowned for.Louis Vuitton stores opened in cities throughout the world and expanded into other high-end brands. The merger in 1987 with Möet Hennessy created the megabrand LVMH, and in 1997 the appointment of Marc Jacobs launched Louis Vuitton into the world of fashion."The Louis Vuitton woman is more about a quality - a quality within some women that needs to come forward, to be noticed and recognised." Marc Jacobs"There's a lot of baggage that comes along with our family, but it's like Louis Vuitton baggage." Kim Kardashian"Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury." Louis VuittonJapanese America on the Eve of the Pacific War: An Untold History of the 1930s
Par Eiichiro Azuma and Kaoru Ueda. 2024
The era sandwiched between the 1924 US Immigration Act and the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor marks an important…
yet largely buried period of Japanese American history. This book offers the first English translation of Yasuo Sakata's seminal essay arguing that the 1930s constitutes a chronological and conceptual "missing link" between two predominant research interests: the pre-1924 immigration exclusion and the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. The anthology pays tribute to Sakata's role as a foremost historian of early Japanese America and transpacific migration while providing an opportunity for a younger generation of scholars to reflect on his contributions and carve out a new area of research in Japanese American history. Original and translated essays from scholars of varied backgrounds and generations explore topics from diplomacy, geopolitics, and trade to immigrant and ethnic nationalism, education, and citizenship. Together, they attempt to catalyze further research and writing based on the thorough and careful analysis of primary-source materials, an effort that Sakata spearheaded in both the United States and Japan.